3,000 lobbyists won deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial collapse, according to a 231-page report issued by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation.

BILL MOYERS: "market fundamentalism"? GEORGE SOROS: It's that markets will correct themselves, that you should leave it to markets, and there is no need for government intervention in financial affairs. Letting markets run rampant. That doesn't work.

New rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. "They want these rules to continue to have an impact long after they leave office". - Compare GWB to Clinton 11th hr.

Friedman, "Only a crisis produces real change. The actions taken depend on ideas lying around. Our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."